New Jersey Devils: Steven Santini Shows He Belongs

The New Jersey Devils are 5-1 and Steven Santini is a much larger part of that than many people may realize.

Steve Santini is averaging 20:58 TOI through six games for the New Jersey Devils. He played a season high of 25:40 in a win against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

He may go unnoticed, but I can’t stress how well he is playing through this tough early stretch for New Jersey. Santini and the Devils have had their best defensive play when he’s been paired with Andy Greene in a shutdown role. Doing so allows John Moore and Damon Severson to face weaker opponents and utilize their puck moving ability.

Santini faces the opposing team’s top scorers. Against top-heavy teams like Tampa Bay and Washington had him spend most of his time against a single line. Against teams like Toronto and Buffalo where the talent is more evenly distributed, Santini saw his minutes come against the top six rather than one specific line.

What does that all mean?

The major takeaway from that can be found in the Washington and Tampa games. The Devils lost against Washington but it was a close game until they took too many penalties against a team with a dominant power play.

Against Washington, Santini spent most of his time shadowing the Jakub Vrana, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Alex Ovechkin line. That’s a line that has been dominant.

In a huge win over Tampa, Santini saw himself matched up with Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, and Vladimir Namestnikov. Those are some pretty big names.

The biggest question mark going into this year was the Devils defense. Everyone knows Andy Greene is serviceable in a top pair role, however, the question was if anyone would emerge beside him.

By the Numbers

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Now that we know the quality of players he’s been facing, lets take a quick look at some of his numbers.

We’ll start with zone starts. Santini has started in the defensive zone 80% of the time. 80%! He’s constantly facing the opposing team’s top lines while starting in his own zone.

Essentially, Santini is averaging over 20 minutes a night, facing teams’ top players, and starting the defensive zone against those players over 80% of the time.

Santini even added a beautiful assist against Tampa Bay on a perfect bank pass to Brian Gibbons in front of the net.

The Devils have looked great through six games. They’ve taken the league by surprise and a large part of that can be attributed to Santini’s play. He’s being given the tough minutes and looks like he belongs.